Google chief warns bloated staff of ‘real concerns’ over productivity

https://fortune.com/2022/08/01/google-sundar-pichai-warns-bloated-staff-productivity-concerns/

by i0exception • 4 years ago

26 27 4 years ago

jimbob452• 4 years ago

There are real concerns that our productivity as a whole is not where it needs to be for the headcount we have

Why would you say something so stupid? Has the most powerful CEO in the world really never heard the adage, "Praise publicly, criticize privately"? Criticism is fine but blanket criticism of staff is virtually never the right move.

nh23423fefe• 4 years ago

Why is lying in public a good idea?

The memo was "leaked" by cnbc, so Pichai wasn't even doing what you say he did anyway.

jimbob452• 4 years ago

At a meeting between executives and Google employees, Pichai said that the company’s productivity has fallen behind its targets considering its number of employees, CNBC reported, after speaking with attendees and reviewing internal documents.

My initial impression was that this was a memo that had been fanned out to the majority of Googlers, which is the sin I was referring to. Now that you mention it, though, it's possible that the "Google employees" the above quote is referring to is actually just select members of management, which would be much better.

chrismcb2• 4 years ago

The memo wasn't "leaked"by cnbc. Unless it was given to cnbc confidentiality. It was either leaked by an employee to cnbc, or more likely it was given to cnbc by an executive.

_jal• 4 years ago

You say things like that to set a mood in the workforce. The desired mood here is fear, to provoke pliancy. If people are worried about their jobs, they are less likely to whine about other things and keep their heads down when axes start swinging.

devchix• 4 years ago

An HN user's unforgettable description of Google:

"At least when I was there, google seemed like an island with melancholic, but smart and kind pandas who never had to compete for food, for the food was brought to them by a ferry, and never had to do any work, unless they had a spark of curiosity that made them explore an interesting rock or mess with sand on the beach. All pandas were consistently exceeding expectations, even if they slept on a tree most of the day."

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25609594

Now, whenever I read "Google", my mind instantly sub "Island of melancholy pandas."

geniium• 4 years ago

Thanks for the comment, made my day

gsatic• 4 years ago

The real concern is they think showing more toothpaste ads to grandma is a "mission". "Its not about the money, its about the mission guys". Corporate robots should be classified as a separate species at this point.

ageitgey• 4 years ago

I think they've pretty much completed the toothpaste mission at this point: https://twitter.com/ageitgey/status/1483410675548495874

nebula8804• 4 years ago

That corporate nonsense sounds more like Elon Musk companies to be honest. I guess the running joke from the world of Silicon Valley (TV Show) is that all companies say they are "making the world a better place"

The real question is: Are they SoMoLo or MoSoLo or LoMoSo?

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8C5sjjhsso

dang• 4 years ago

Google CEO tells employees productivity and focus must improve - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32300444 - Aug 2022 (99 comments)

elteto• 4 years ago

They are just paving the way for a reduction in force.

kernal• 4 years ago

We should think about how we can minimize distractions and really raise the bar on both product excellence and productivity

Google needs to do what Coinbase did and give an ultimatum to their woke social justice warriors.

harveywi• 4 years ago

Could Kubernetes have anything to do with the decrease in productivity?

relueeuler• 4 years ago

You mean not wanting to work with it? Or lost time debugging it?

PaulKeeble• 4 years ago

Having been the company of determining that high performance teams needing psychological safety he has decided the best course of action is to threaten them all to work harder or get made redundant. I am sure that will have the desired effect. In every business I have ever worked in the sniff of redundancies and the threats that came from management were devastating to creativity and productivity and caused a mass exodus of talent.

bogantech• 4 years ago

If I was one of the few productive people in a company of lazy slobs the prospect of the dead weight being cast off would make me happy

salawat• 4 years ago

Counterpoint: All that dead weight still, nevertheless, represented work that ultimately needed to get done.

That work is now your problem.

Tut, tut, Bogantech.

brnt• 4 years ago

You are assuming those that lay off are able to discriminate what's useless busywork and what's true innovation. Or that the latter is in fact what they are truly after.

Google makes money with ads. Tons of Google's engineering is utterly besides that core business. Productive might mean an excellent ad salesperson, and lazy slob a programmer only working on irrelevant efficiency.

dvfjsdhgfv• 4 years ago

It looks like you've never experienced office politics.

birdyrooster2• 4 years ago

Given that you start with a straw man of “company of lazy slobs” which is an obvious exaggeration, your conclusion is hardly useful.

candiodari• 4 years ago

I have never known layoffs to actually "cast off dead weight". And, frankly, even if they miss that by 5% (ie. 95% layoffs are actually dead weight) they will still kill morale in the entire company. And, let's not forget, even the slightest hint of layoffs will make every middle manager, from VP to team leader, become totally untrustworthy. From your perspective as an IC, to each other, and to C-suite execs. They will lie and cheat, in groups, sabotaging whatever effort there actually is, from the C-suite, to cast off that dead weight.

And once morale is gone, it is a very short time until there is nothing but dead weight.

If there is a way to cast of dead weight with layoffs, I've never seen it happen. I've seen layoffs kill companies entirely, and make them into dead husks, unable to die, but even less able to live. But that's the best possible outcome.

rich_sasha• 4 years ago

Here's an idea: let people go to 4 days work for 80% pay (big saving).

I'd generally take that in a heartbeat.

anonporridge• 4 years ago

Google already has a policy for that.

With manager approval, you can go down to as low as 60% time (and equivalent total comp reduction). I believe it's called flextime internally.

Amazon has also been experimenting for years with teams of 32 hour/week SWEs. https://www.amazon.jobs/en/landing_pages/part-time-tech

Interestingly, when I was at Amazon, I talked to one of the part time SWE managers. I expressed my surprised that the program wasn't more popular. He said most engineers just aren't that interested in the idea unless they're going through some major life event that requires their time, like a new baby or sick relative.

Perhaps only a cultural shift of the entire company to 4 day weeks would get everyone on board with the idea, without feeling like they're risking getting left behind and jumping to the top of the future layoff list.

birdyrooster2• 4 years ago

How about 3 days for 80%

Apreche• 4 years ago

If Google is so concerned with productivity maybe they should stop having people work on products that they are just going to shut down a month after launching them.

chrismcb2• 4 years ago

So we worked at home for nearly two years, and productivity increased. Then we were forced back to the office, and productivity decreased?

Google chief warns bloated staff of ‘real concerns’ over productivity

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